Erma Bombeck Quotes

One of my first thoughts I had when I started considering the mastectomy was, 'What am I going to look like?' And then, 'What will my husband think?'

I didn't have to undergo reconstructive surgery.

Losing a part of a breast or all of one or both has, obviously, serious psychological consequences.

You have to laugh at yourself, because you'd cry your eyes out if you didn't.

Subtract out the impact and the fall is all you get. So here's two beers to remember why and three more to forget.

I don't mind being laughed at: that's something I really don't mind, and I think that's kept me sane. My ability to laugh at myself and allow others to laugh at me has been my saving grace.

I've spent my whole life being told I have a face like a horse. You are just what you are, aren't you?

So I - the thought that I would physically be different was - it's not a thrill, I have to tell you. It's kind of - it brings you up short. But I was able to look at it right away.

I'll never forget the day that I was told I would have to have a mastectomy. My reaction to the words was total denial.

I never felt cool growing up. I was a bit of an outsider, but I discovered theatre very early on, which got me through.

I had a breast reduction.

I started balding at age 17 and after first being sad, I really embraced it.

When I'm photographing, I think - like any rescue worker who deals with tragedy - you have to have some protective barrier around your heart so you can do your job. You tend to have a delayed reaction to things. I feel things more deeply after I put the camera down.

We need to learn to laugh at ourselves because when you don't laugh, you cry. And I don't feel like crying.

I made the choice to have the double mastectomy, and for me it felt like the right choice, and it turned out to be the right choice.

I never looked at myself as the fat sister. Sometimes I would beat people to the punch and say, 'Oh I'm the fat, funny one,' because that's what people would say about me. But I never really thought that.

One day I looked at something in myself that I had been avoiding because it was too painful. Yet once I did, I had an unexpected surprise. Rather than self-hatred, I was flooded with compassion for myself because I realized the pain necessary to develop that coping mechanism to begin with.

I've often contemplated some kind of tummy tuck surgery, but I know this is not the answer.

What I'm trying to achieve with my surgery is my own personal satisfaction. It's narcissism.

To be a man requires that you accept everything life has to give you, beginning with your name.

One thing I did have under my belt was, my mother lost her mother when she was 11. She mourned her mother her whole life and made my grandmother seem present even though I never met her. I couldn't imagine how my mom could go on but she did, she took care of us, she worked two jobs and had four children. She was such a good example of how to conduct oneself in a time of grief. When I lost my husband, I tried to model myself as much as I could on her.

Laughter is the only strategy that has ever worked at all for me when my world is falling apart.

In real life, people in the most dire situations must cope through humor.

A guy at ABC told me to change my name and get a nose job. I said 'You get a nose job.'

Or if I truly gave up I could be like Wet Lindsay. When Robbie dumped her she got all pale and even wetter than normal. She was like an anoraksick. (A person who is both very thin and wears tragic anoraks.) I just made that up as a joke. Even though I am very upset I can still think of a joke.